Thanksgiving 1917

Given the news of the day, it couldn't have been a cheery one.

President Wilson issued a proclamation, as was the custom:

 

By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
 It has long been the honored custom of our people to turn in the fruitful autumn of the year in praise and thanksgiving to Almighty God for His many blessings and mercies to us as a nation. That custom we can follow now even in the midst of the tragedy of a world shaken by war and immeasurable disaster, in the midst of sorrow and great peril, because even amidst the darkness that has gathered about us we can see the great blessings God has bestowed upon us, blessings that are better than mere peace of mind and prosperity of enterprise.

We have been given the opportunity to serve mankind as we once served ourselves in the great day of our Declaration of Independence, by taking up arms against a tyranny that threatened to master and debase men everywhere and joining with other free peoples in demanding for all the nations of the world what we then demanded and obtained for ourselves. In this day of the revelation of our duty not only to defend our own rights as nation but to defend also the rights of free men throughout the world, there has been vouchsafed us in full and inspiring measure the resolution and spirit of united action. We have been brought to one mind and purpose. A new vigor of common counsel and common action has been revealed in us. We should especially thank God that in such circumstances, in the midst of the greatest enterprise the spirits of men have ever entered upon, we have, if we but observe a reasonable and practicable economy, abundance with which to supply the needs of those associated with us as well as our own. A new light shines about us. The great duties of a new day awaken a new and greater national spirit in us. We shall never again be divided or wonder what stuff we are made of.

And while we render thanks for these things let us pray Almighty God that in all humbleness of spirit we may look always to Him for guidance; that we may be kept constant in the spirit and purpose of service; that by His grace our minds may be directed and our hands strengthened; and that in His good time liberty and security and peace and the comradeship of a common justice may be vouchsafed all the nations of the earth.

Wherefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate Thursday, the twenty-ninth day of November next as a day of thanksgiving and prayer, and invite the people throughout the land to cease upon that day from their ordinary occupations and in their several homes and places of worship to render thanks to God, the great ruler of nations.
In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done in the District of Columbia this 7th day of November in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and seventeen and of the independence of the United States of America the one hundred and forty-second.

WOODROW WILSON

 The news, overall, was pretty grim:

The concern of what was going on with Russia, as can be seen, was mounting.

So what was Thanksgiving like in 1917 for average Americans?  This item from A Hundred Years Ago gives us a glimpse/  This ran on A Hundred Years Ago prior to the 2017 Thanksgiving.  I'm linking it in now, as the 1917 Thanksgiving was on this day, rather than the slightly earlier day in November we now celebrate it on.  An interesting look at earlier Thanksgivings:

Grandma’s 1914 Thanksgiving

Interesting that goose was the meat of choice.

Poster Saturday (but a magazine cover today). Judge; August 18, 1917.

The British Pattern 14 Rifle.

This is the story of the British Pattern 14 Enfield, which turns out to be a story that's more important for the US than for the United Kingdom.





Not that its as unimportant for the UK as some would have it.  It was issued on the front lines early i the war and, as it was a more accurate rifle than the SMLE, it was used, with telescopic sight, as a sniper rifle by the British during the Great War.  It would not reprise that role in World War Two in the British Army, but it did in the Australian Army.

Working in the ice cream cone bakery.

John Myers, 14 years old, Oklahoma City. An after school job.  April 3, 1917.

And a 12 year old, who was working there full time.

Roads to the Great War: A Surprising Newspaper Headline from 1 January 1914

We've looked a lot in 2016 at the Punitive Expedition of 1916. But, of course, the crisis with Mexico started before that.  Here's an interesting example of how things were developing before the events of 1916.

Roads to the Great War: A Surprising Newspaper Headline from 1 January 191...: Click on Image to Expand On New Year's Day in 1914 there was simply no awareness in the United States that an unprecedented ...

Monday, May 11, 1914. The Honored Dead.

 A national tribute was held in New York City for servicemen killed in the Battle of Veracruz.

Last prior edition:

Sunday, May 10, 1914. Mother's Day.

1910s, 1914, boats and ships, Canadian Arctic Expedition, France, Heroes, Mother's Day, Politics, Russia, Siberia, U.S. Navy

Sunday, May 10, 1914. Mother's Day.

It was the first official Mother's Day, the proclamation having been issued yesterday.

The U.S. Navy brought back the bodies of service men who had died over a snit over how the Mexican government was to apologize for a mistake.

The French Radical Party won a plurality of votes for the French Assembly.  In spite of their name, they are a center left French republican party.

Shipwrecked Karluck captain Robert Bartlett left Intuit guide Kataktovik in Emma Town, Siberia and traveled with a Russian escort to Emma Harbor in his ongoing effort to seek a rescue for the Canadian Arctic Expedition survivors on Wrangel Island.

Last prior edition:

Saturday, May 9, 1914. A Mothers Day Proclamation.

1910s, 1914, 2020s, Art, children, Commentary, Marriage, mehr Mensch sein, Mexican Border War, Mexico, Mother's Day, Personalities, Sexual Revolution, Women, Woodrow Wilson

Saturday, May 9, 1914. A Mothers Day Proclamation.

It was a Saturday, so the Saturday magazines were out, including this one honoring the very first Mother's Day.

President Wilson issued a proclamation decreeing Mother's Day.  It created the holiday.

The purpose of the day was to honor mothers who had lost sons in wars, although those who had backed the day had a broader purpose, that being to honor mother's in general.

A lot more mothers were about to lose their sons in war.

The war the US was anticipating was one with Mexico, and a full scale staging of troops on the border was underway, as evidenced by this collection of photographs which were copyrighted on this day.

Mobilization Camp, 2nd Div. (less 5th Brigade & 22 Inf.), Texas City, Texas, 1914

19th & 28th Infantry Camp, Fort Crockett, Texas, 1914.

6th Cavalry Camp, mobilized at Texas City, Texas.

Mobilization Camp, 2nd Div. (less 5th Brigade, 11th & 22nd Inf's.), Texas City, Texas, 1914.

4th & 7th Infantry Camp, Fort Crockett, Texas.

Mobilization Camp, 2nd Div. (less 5th Brigade), Texas City, Texas, 1914

I wonder if some reconsideration should be given to Mother's Day in 2024, 110 years after its creation.  It's harder in some ways now to be a mother than ever, what with the full industrialization of the population, meaning that motherhood comes second to being a worker drone, something the right and the left agree upon.  At the second time, the Sexual Revolution has meant that a lot of men have become permanently infantile and the societal union between men and women, reflected in marriage, has been enormously weakened. 

I'm not sure what a "floating laborer" described, but it probably fits the temp work a lot of single mothers have today.

This has lead to a lot of "single mothers", there really being no such thing actually, and last year an op-ed piece ran in one online journal suggesting there should be a "Single Mother's Day". 

Not hardly.  If ever there's a place where the old standards should be restored, it's here.

Regarding industrialization, C W Post of cereal fame, severely suffering from appendicitis killed himself on this day.

Papers were pretty free with their headlines in those days.

Suffragettes marched.

Last prior edition:

Friday, May 8, 1914. Ag Extension comes into being. Dan Sickles passes on.

1860s, 1910s, 1914, 4H, 63d Congress, Agriculture, Aircraft, Alcohol, Army, Battle of Gettysburg, Civil War, Food, Geology, Italy, Mafia, Movies, Occupation of Veracruz, Personalities, Politics, Poverty

Friday, May 8, 1914. Ag Extension comes into being. Dan Sickles passes on.

The Smith Lever Act went into providing for a national Cooperative Extension Service to be established.

This would allow university agriculture departments to offer rural education programs, which his a good thing.

UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING EXTENSION

This is also an example of the American System of economics, which the current GOP detests.  It'd be interesting to see what they'd feel about the introduction of such a program today.

An article about the act from another site in another state:

Maryland 4-H and the Centennial of Smith-Lever

On the same day, the 63d Congress also passed a joint resolution "designating the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day, and for other purposes"

A small magnitude earthquake, 4.9, hit Giarre, Sicily, and resulted in the destruction of 223 homes and 120 deaths, saying something about the condition in which people lived.

Coincidentally, or perhaps not, Mount Etna erupted.

This demonstrates, of course, how tectonically active Italy is, but also how poor it was.  Since some point in the 1950s, it's been popular to depict Italy as glamorous, but in fact the country was desperately poor to a large extent prior to that time, and was "backward" by the standards of North Americans and northern Europeans.  Living conditions recalled Medieval conditions in much of the country up until a post-war economic revolution in Europe changed things, something that also helps to explain the rise of fascism in the 1920s, the strong Italian communist party in the 20th Century, criminal organizations, and large-scale emigration.

The funeral of Daniel Sickles was held in New York.

Sickles was a controversial Civil War and early Reconstruction era U.S. Army general.  A political figure, he was the only corps commander in the U.S. Army who had not been to West Point, something that didn't make him popular with Regular Army officers at the time, but then he was otherwise an aggressive figure who would have been unpopular no matter what.

Sickles controversially repositioned his command without authorization from Gen. Meade at Gettysburg, a move that proved to be a mistake. When Meade learned about this, he confronted Sickles but did not order him to withdraw, as it was too late to do so. Soon thereafter, Sickles was struck by a cannonball in the leg, which he survived of course, but which caused him to lose the leg and which ended his field career. He received the Medal of Honor for his actions at Gettysburg, in spite of his actions in repositioning his command.

A New York state political figure before the war, he'd go on to serve in the House of Representatives, after serving a stint as Minister to Spain, for a single term in 1893-1895.

Sickles was a lawyer by trade, and the son of a patent lawyer.  His pre-war life was far from pacific.  He was admitted to the bar in 1843 and elected to the New York State Assembly in 1847.  In 1852, he married Teresa Bagioli against the wishes of both families, at which time he was 32, and she was about 15 or 16 years old.  While very young, she was reportedly sophisticated for her age, and spoke five languages.

In 1853, he was appointed Secretary of the US Legation in London.  He reportedly took Fanny White, a known prostitute, to London with him, and had already been censured by the New York State Assembly for escorting her into their chambers.  He even presented her to Queen Victoria.  Notably, his wife was home in the U.S. pregnant at the time.

Perhaps not too surprisingly, his wife in turn had an affair with the US Attorney for Washington, DC.  Sickles shot him dead on the street, but was acquitted for the killing in the first use of the temporary insanity defense in the U.S. 

His first wife died in 1867, having never really reconciled after the killing. They had one child.  He remarried to Maria "Cooke", a Spanish woman, in 1871. She also predeceased him. They had three children. As his marriage to an Italian American and a Spanish woman would suggest, he was Catholic, although obviously not the most observant one at points during his lifetime.  His funeral was held at New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral.  He was 94 at the time of his death.

As a minor observation, because it extended year around at the time, Catholic observers of Sickles death who may have gone to post funeral receptions would have been restricted to meatless options, assuming there was no local dispensation.

While the controversial veteran of an old war was being buried, the Cheyenne paper was worrying about the possibility of a new one.

There was, of course, reason to worry, but that was no reason not to go watch a presentation about the Frontier wars that had followed the Civil War.

Sunkist oranges were already a thing, which surprises me.

As was Pabst Blue Ribbon, which does not surprise me.

Budweiser was continuing with its European wars theme.

And there was a reason for Postum.

Paramount Pictures was formed through a partnership between Famous Players Film Company and the Lasky Feature Play Company. 

The first French shipboard aircraft launch was made by René Caudron from a ramp constructed over the fore-deck of the seaplane tender Foudre.

The Caudron brothers, Gason and René,  would go on to form an early aircraft manufacturing company, Société des Avions Caudron.  Gaston Caudron died in an aircraft accident in 1915, but René carried on in aircraft manufacturing until the fall of France in World War Two.  He died in 1959.

Last prior edition:

Thursday, May 7, 1914. A Colorado murder is reported in Wyoming.

1910s, 1914, Cheyenne Wyoming, Colorado (Denver), Crime, Denver Colorado, Laramie Wyoming, Mexican Revolution, Occupation of Veracruz, Personalities, Wyoming (Cheyenne), Wyoming (Laramie)

Thursday, May 7, 1914. A Colorado murder is reported in Wyoming.

 Congress established Mother's Day.

Almost all the newspaper's in southern Wyoming were carrying stories about hotelier L.F. Nicodemus, who had run hotels in Laramie and Cheyenne, being shot and killed in Denver by James C. Bulger, who was universally declared to be a "soldier of fortune".  He was also one of the founders of Larimer County and the brief town there, called "Bulger", which no longer exists.

Bulger was convicted of murder for the event.  Apparently insanity was attempted as a defense, as the record of his appeal states:

There was evidence tending to show that defendant is of an adventurous spirit and roving disposition; that he had been a soldier in the United States army serving in the Philippine Islands, a ranchman, a land speculator in Colorado, a soldier in Central America, and an officer in Madero's army in Mexico; that his grandfathers had been addicted to the use of intoxicants; that his uncle was a heavy drinker, and that his father frequently had delirium tremens; that his mother, who at the time of the trial was approximately 60 years of age, was of a moody and melancholy disposition; that the age of defendant is 33 years, and for several years prior to 1912 he was of a cheerful temperament, neat in his appearance and friendly in his disposition, and was somewhat addicted to the excessive use of intoxicating liquors; that he left Denver in the summer of 1912, and shortly thereafter was shot in the head, where the bullet remained imbedded; that he returned to Denver in April 1914; that upon his return he appeared to be slovenly and careless of his personal appearance and dress, drank to excess, and was more nervous, excitable, and easily aggravated than before; that at times he was subject to certain delusions, and, in the opinion of some witnesses, including experts, was insane at the time of the homicide. There was evidence upon the part of the prosecution, including testimony of experts, tending to establish the sanity of the defendant. We will advert to other evidence in the discussion of some of the assignments of error.

An instruction upon delusional insanity, given to the jury over the objection of defendant, constitutes one of the principal grounds relied upon for reversal. 

To flesh the story out, he'd been drinking at the hotel bar and got into an argument with Cheyenne rodeo cowboy Hugh Clark over a regiment Bulger was raising to fight in Mexico.  Clark insulted him in the conversation and went and armed himself, but Clark disarmed him and hit him. Bulger then left the bar, hailed a taxi, and bought two new revolvers and ammunition and returned to the bar, but Clark had left. He confronted Nicodemus and demanded to know where Clark was, but Nicodemus said he didn't know, and turned from him, whereupon Bulger shot him.

Bulger would ultimately receive stays of execution six times before his sentence was commuted to life.  He was released in 1961 at age 80, and then went to work at the prison as a gardener.  He died in 1966 and is buried at the Mount Olivet Cemetery in Denver.

US servicemen were flirting in Vera Cruz. That didn't take long.

Last prior edition:

Wednesday, May 6, 1914. No votes for British women.

1910s, 1914, Alcohol, Frederick Funston, Mexico, Mexico (Veracruz), Occupation of Veracruz, Railroads, United Kingdom, Vera Cruz Mexico, Women, Wyoming

Wednesday, May 6, 1914. No votes for British women.

The House of Lords rejected the Women's Suffrage Bill. The vote was 104 to 60.  A person has to wonder if the recent terror strikes by suffragist had a negative impact.

Cheyenne revealed that Gen. Funson was authorized to "extend his lines in Mexico", by which readers learned the paper was referring to Vera Cruz, not anywhere on the border.

While I was aware that the then legendary Gen. Frederick Funston was in command on the border, I wasn't aware that this extended all the way to Vera Cruz.

Cheyenne was wanting a railroad bridge at Guernsey repaired.

Schlitz took out a full page add in the same paper.

Last prior edition:

Monday, May 4, 1914. Gov. Ammon on the ropes.

1910s, 1914, Álvaro Obregón, Art, Colorado, Colorado Coalfield War, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Occupation of Veracruz, Politics, Terrorism, United Kingdom, Women

Monday, May 4, 1914. Gov. Ammon on the ropes.

 The Boomerang was pondering Colorado Governor Ammon's fate. . . and war with Mexico.

In Mexico, Revolutionary and future president of the country Álvaro Obregón began a blockade around Mazatlán.

Ammons would survive the impeachment attempt, but he's seen the handwriting on the wall politically and made his current term, which expired in 1915, his last.

Suffragette Mary Ann Aldham slashed John Singer Sargent's portrait of Henry James as part of the ongoing suffragette campaign of terrorism that had been going on in recent weeks in the UK. The painting was on display at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.

The victimized painting.

The attack is proof of a certain danger.  Even really good causes attracts acts out of outright goofballedness.

Last prior edition:

Saturday, May 2, 1914. National Suffrage Day

1920s, 1924, Calvin Coolidge, Craters of the Moon National Monument, Cuba, Government, Idaho, Radio

Saturday, May 2, 1914. National Suffrage Day

There were suffrage parades and marches across the United States.  The day, in fact, had been declared National Suffrage Day by those advocating for a nationwide franchise for women.

In a lot of ways, this was a carryover of labor protests that had occured the day prior, on May Day.

In Wyoming, where Wyoming had the vote, the news was on the war in the state to the South, where Federal troops were deploying.

In later pages, readers learned that (union) railroad workers were refusing to haul troops to the conflict zone, although I've seen photos of the railroads doing just that, which raises some questions regarding this assertion.

The telegraph company was celebrating the construction of the Lincoln Highway, which really wouldn't be much of a thing for years.

Last prior edition:

May 1, 1914. Llano del Rio created.

1910s, 1914, 1950s, 1956, Aircraft, Anarchy, Distributism, May Day, Mondragon Spain, Ottoman Empire, Palestine, Socialism, Spain